COBBETT, WILLIAM, was the son of a farmer and publican at Farnham in Surrey, where he was born in March 1702. He has himself related the incidents of the first portion of his life in ' The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine,' first published in 179d. This tract coetains a most interesting account of his self-education, carried on under circumstances of difficulty, and with an ardour and steadiness of purpose that has never been surpassed. He was trained up to country work, and so employed from an early age till the autumn of 1782, when on a visit to the neighbourhood of Portsmouth he first beheld the sea, and the next day made an unsuccessful attempt to get employment on board a man-of-war. In May the following year, on the impulse of a sudden thought which took him at Guildford fair, he came to London, and soon, by the assistance of a friend, obtained a situation as copying clerk; but at the end of nine months he wont to Chatham, where ho enlisted in aregiment of foot, which was sent out to Nova Scotia, and was eventually ordered to New Brunswick. For his excellent conduct he was made a corporal before the regiment left England, and soon after its arrival in Amerioa lie was raised at once, over the heads of thirty serjoauts, to the rank of scrjeaot-major. In New Brunswick he made his acquaintance with his future wife, then a girl of thirteen, the daughter of a aerjeant-major of artillery. His own accouut of his courtship and marriage is, it may be fairly said, one of the most pleasing moral pictures over drawn. Cobbett's regiment did not get back to England till the end of the year 1791, when at hie earnest request he obtained his diecharge, with a testimonial from his commanding officer, declaring that he had served honestly and faithfully for the space of eight years, and was discharged "in con sideration of his good behaviour and the services he had rendered the regiment.' Ile now engaged in a proceeding, of his conduct in which and the motives by which he was actuated no intelligible explanation has ever been given ; we mean his bringing charges of peculation against four officers, of his lato regiment, and then, when a courbivartial was appointed to try them, and every arrangement connected with it mado in tho manner he himself required, dccliuiug to come forward to prosecute. On the day of trial, to the surprise of all concerned, he did not make his appearance, although forty-seven witnesses named by him had been brought up from Portsmouth to London ; and the court, in the notion that some accident might possibly have happened to him, adjourned to the third day after. In the meantime search was made for him in all directions, but he bad crossed over to France. He remained in that country for six months, and then sailed from Havre-de-Grace for New York, where he arrived in October 1792. About two years after this date he made his first appearance as a public writer in an attack upon Dr. Priestley, then newly arrived in the United States. under the title of Observations on the Emigration of a Martyr to the Cause of Liberty, by Peter This pamphlet attracted much notice, and was followed by a long succession of others in the same violent anti-democratic strain, and with the same signature. The whole were afterwards collected and reprinted in England in 1801, in 12 vols. 8vo. The outrageous recklessness and personality of his invective however at length exposed him to several prosecutions for libel, and the inconveniences in which he was thus involved induced him in June 1800 to quit America for England. On
arriving in London he immediately started a Tory daily paper under the title of the Porcupine,' hut it was discontinued after an existence of ooly a few months. Upon this he commenced his 'Weekly which rapidly attained a large circulation, and which he kept up without the failure of a single week from its first publication till his death, a period of above thirty-three years. In the course of this time however it wholly changed its politics, having eventually become the most determined among the assailants of the government and the champions of democracy. The first indications of this change appeared in the course of 1803, but it was not till some years later that the conductor of the had completely reversed his original position. In the year 1804 two verdicts had been given against him for libel, in consequence of the first of which (for libels on the Earl of Hardwicke, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland; Lord Redesdale, lord chancellor of that country ; and other persons connected with the Irish government) he was fined 500/. ; and by the second of which he was cast in 500/. damages to Mr. (afterwards Lord) Pluuket, then the Irish In 1810 he was again tried on an information at the instance of the government for certain observations in the 'Register' of the 10th of July, 1809, on the flogging of some local militia-men at Ely ; and the result was a conviction, on which he was sentenced to pay a fine of 1000/. to the king, and to be imprisoned for two years. When he camo ont of prison he act in motion a new engine for the annoyance of the administration in the series of papers which he called his 'Twopenny Trash,' the circnlation of which is said at one time to have amounted to 100,000 copies. In April 1817 how ever, professedly to escape from the operation of the Six Acts, but partly also, as is believed, in consequence of certain pecuniary embar rassments, be again visited America. While there he still continued the publication of his ' Register' in London, the manuscript being regularly transmitted across the Atlantic. He returned to England in 1819, and soon after commenced a daily paper, which lasted only two months, involving him in further losses. Two other actions for libel immediately followed, in both of which he was cast; the damages awarded in the first (brought by Mr. Cleary) being only 40s , but in the second (brought by Mr. John Wright) 10001. Amidst all these troubles, neither the regularity nor the spirit of• his literary labours ever relaxed. His 'Register' was only one of many productions which his nntiring and ever-vigorous pen was constantly giving to the world. In 1820 he made his first attempt to get into parliament by standing a contest for the city of Coventry, in which he was defeated. In 1826 he was again unsuccessful in a similar attempt at Preston. In 1829 and 1830 ho attracted much attention by a number of political lectures which he delivered in several of the principal towns of England and Scotland. In July 1831 he was again tried oa a prosecution for libel, the charge being grounded on an article which had appeared in the 'Register,' and which was alleged to have been published with the Intent of exciting the agricultural labourers to acts of violence, and to destroy property. He defended himself on this occasion in a speech of six hours; and, the jury not being able to agree in a verdict, the trial ended in his discharge.